There has been a great deal of discussion in the press over the past several years relating to MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses. Using the Internet and readily available textbooks, education can be cheaply distributed to anyone who has Internet access. It is now generally recognized that mastery of almost any field taught in colleges and universities can be achieved by a motivated student without attending lectures at that college or university. Thus, the technology is in place for any student to obtain knowledge that has previously only been available to a campus-resident, matriculated student at a college, university or other institution at virtually no cost other than the cost of textbooks.
In contrast, the cost of a traditional Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) education, for example, resulting in a bachelor's degree can greatly exceed one hundred thousand dollars. The only impediment which exists from preventing a university such as MIT from granting a degree to such a student is that the university needs to know with absolute certainty that the student did not cheat when taking the various exams required to demonstrate mastery of the coursework. With a degree from MIT, for example, industry will hire such a person at a starting salary approaching or exceeding $100,000 per year. Thus, the value to the student is enormous. Since the information which must be mastered is now available in readily available textbooks and for free through MOOCs on the Internet, the only impediment separating a motivated student from a high starting salary is that a degree-granting university must be certain that the student has demonstrated mastery of the material through successful completion of examinations.
As generally used herein, a “test” is any type of question-based application that requires analysis by a person taking the test and a response from this person. A test may therefore be considered an examination, a quiz, an assessment, an evaluation, a trial and/or an analysis.